There's a difference between "that guy's kind of a jerk, but I don't think he knows it" and deleting paid accounts and backups over some words on Twitter.
Yeah, there's a not-so-subtle line there.
I would be concerned if an employee of mine exhibited that behavior, because I've seen it before. We had a technically brilliant, but socially ... scary ... individual working as a sysadmin. He blew up about a decision to abandon all of our 1-off mail platforms and switch purely to Exchange (rather than GroupWise, which he preferred and most in our location used).
He was the technical lead for our GroupWise deployment, so to voice his dissatisfaction with the decision that idiots in upper management made, he did us the courtesy of wiping out a swath of our employee's mailboxes contained on one of the servers. And, much like this guy but on a grander scale, began erasing the current set of tapes that had backed up most of our servers our location.
We didn't end up losing much, and I can't remember why (we had tapes stored off-site off-line, but they were only moved weekly). The thing that was most shocking was all of the profanity and yelling originating from his cube while he was packing up his things under direct supervision of a member of corporate security. He seemed genuinely surprised he was told his services were no longer necessary (they even laid him off rather than firing him for cause, allowing him severance pay and unemployment during a hiring boom). At no point did he seem like a stable guy. His boss liked him because he was very smart and the result of his cleverness was enough of an improvement to services and reduction in costs that his instabilities could be argued away ("He launched this project that's bringing in X revenue, he's just a little strange, that's all.").
Sad thing: he continued to find employment and continued to get laid off (5 places, I believe), then died at 37 of a heart attack. The guy who noticed the obit forwarded it out to our team like it was some sort of vindication "See, he DIED because he was such a jerk!". Even normally decent people have a mean streak about them, I guess.
Let me be very clear. Anger management problems do NOT correlate with sociopathic behavior. Sociopaths can be charming just as likely as they can be assholes. Equally, someone who is charming is just as likely to be a sociopath as a frustrated technical person with no social skills.
So thanks for your single data point of an angry person who was also a sociopath.
Your post is equivalent to writing: "We had a technical guy. Very polite. But he was black. When we asked him to do something he deleted all our work. Turns out he did this at the next five jobs. Be careful hiring black people".
Being black, or white, or martian, or having anger management issues, are not relevant. Being a sociopath is relevant.
Sociopath is a tough word because it means a lot of things and it really isn't used in clinical diagnosis. Based on the historical patterns though a sociopath was typically someone lacking any type of empathy, so they would do things hurt other people just to amuse themselves by watching the results. There is no where near enough information to diagnose sociopathy presented.
If you look at the Anti-Social Personality disorders, this may fall closer to a Cluster B - Histrionic. Which is what many people consider someone with "anger management" issues.
I agree with what I think is the intent of your post, that people with a personality disorder are suffering from something they may not have control of. However, I do think anger management issues are a disorder and are not of a kind with being "black" as there is no inherent disorder associated with being black.
I think that employers have a very real, and legitimate interest in not employing people with severe personality disorders, particularly if they are not under control or in treatment for the disorder. Even then, it doesn't make sense to put some people in a position where they can cripple your company if they are very upset over something.
>Sociopath is a tough word because it means a lot of things and it really isn't used in clinical diagnosis
When understood as a synonym for an acute case of antisocial personality disorder (this is how virtually all people educated in clinical psychology understand it), it's actually one of the primary commonalities of criminals and is an incredibly meaningful way to understand some people.
> Based on the historical patterns though a sociopath was typically someone lacking any type of empathy, so they would do things hurt other people just to amuse themselves by watching the results.
That's a pretty gross over-simplification, there are many comorbid behaviors with sociopathy and they form a whole constellation with which a clinician can diagnose/identify it.
Here's a good start, you may want to educate yourself before you pontificate on the subject. Sociopathy is a very misunderstood disorder by most of the public, although there was a recent book that covered it semi-okay.
If part of your "anger management issues" is destructive behavior that harms other people in your organization, I think it's prudent to say "beware hiring that guy." I don't know if I can say for certain that the individual in his example had truly sociopathic behavior, or had "anger management issues" that resulted in destructive behavior.
I think reduxredacted was trying to explain how some people should just be fired for their behaviour, as generalk asserted, and was telling the story as an example.
I don't think social behaviour (anger management problems) can be compared to someone's race. People will anger management problems can and will react differently in certain situations based on that sole aspect of their personality, which needs to be taken into account.
You are very clear, however, I take issue with your equating being black, white or martian to having anger management issues.
It was not my intention to mislead, but it appears that I have, my apologies. You are correct in asserting that my anecdote did not equate with the known circumstances of the individuals involved. I don't know him, nor does anyone have the whole story other than him and his boss. I was looking to explain the extreme behavior that correlated.
I apologize for my second single data point: I worked with a guy who occasionally flew off the handle and liked to kick things (usually solid things at the expense of his foot, not the thing being kicked). One time it was a small garbage can with projectiles of reasonable weight in them (and it was intentional, he was very angry and wanted to launch something through the air in a place that would have been otherwise safe to do that). The problem is that while this particular storage room usually just had boxed equipment, that day it had a card for a router that was to be delivered to a customer site. The card cost over $30,000CAD, and after re-ordering its replacement, lost my company significantly more. He was let go, too, but was upset, rather than visibly angry about it (who wouldn't be?). He wasn't scary, ever. He had anger management issues (I thought everyone had those ... and it was just a matter of the degree to which they can prevent those issues from impacting those around them. I drop an occasional f-bomb under my breath when the fucking compiler thinks I'm wrong).
He wasn't black, white or martian, but the consequences of his actions were serious. It was a router card he was delivering, that he had ordered, that he had unboxed and that ultimately he had destroyed.
So, really, I don't hire people with anger management issues, because if I can see that during an interview, chances are it's a much bigger problem (I armchair quarterback as a psychologist, admittedly).
When I see anger management issues in my employees (what few employees I've had), I talk to them, explain what an outburst can cost them, and tell them to feel free to yell at me if they are angry (My employees, lately, have been remote, so I don't have to worry about being hit by a garbage can).
EDIT: replaced the word hurtle with launch, because the former made no sense at all.
I apologize. On rereading your first post, your criticism of the fellow was his "stability" not his anger management. You actually did what I was complaining people don't do.
"Don't hire people who are black" and "Don't hire people with anger management problems" are COMPLETELY different things.
Not hiring sociopaths and not hiring people with anger management problems are both great ideas, even if they don't have particularly much to do with each other.
I don't at all understand what you're getting at. A prospective employee having anger management issues is, like race, not relevant to decisions over whether to hire them?
I still can't help but think that at least a few of those unstable BOFHs could be convinced to behave using the right logic and wording. I'm reminded of the episode of The Big Bang Theory in which Sheldon refuses to do something until he's told it's a "non-optional social convention": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127907/quotes?qt=qt0419289
Yeah, there's a not-so-subtle line there.
I would be concerned if an employee of mine exhibited that behavior, because I've seen it before. We had a technically brilliant, but socially ... scary ... individual working as a sysadmin. He blew up about a decision to abandon all of our 1-off mail platforms and switch purely to Exchange (rather than GroupWise, which he preferred and most in our location used).
He was the technical lead for our GroupWise deployment, so to voice his dissatisfaction with the decision that idiots in upper management made, he did us the courtesy of wiping out a swath of our employee's mailboxes contained on one of the servers. And, much like this guy but on a grander scale, began erasing the current set of tapes that had backed up most of our servers our location.
We didn't end up losing much, and I can't remember why (we had tapes stored off-site off-line, but they were only moved weekly). The thing that was most shocking was all of the profanity and yelling originating from his cube while he was packing up his things under direct supervision of a member of corporate security. He seemed genuinely surprised he was told his services were no longer necessary (they even laid him off rather than firing him for cause, allowing him severance pay and unemployment during a hiring boom). At no point did he seem like a stable guy. His boss liked him because he was very smart and the result of his cleverness was enough of an improvement to services and reduction in costs that his instabilities could be argued away ("He launched this project that's bringing in X revenue, he's just a little strange, that's all.").
Sad thing: he continued to find employment and continued to get laid off (5 places, I believe), then died at 37 of a heart attack. The guy who noticed the obit forwarded it out to our team like it was some sort of vindication "See, he DIED because he was such a jerk!". Even normally decent people have a mean streak about them, I guess.